Van Graphics : Kwikdry

[Simon Clayton]

What was printed? Just the man?

Simon

[jon vital]

Talk about fussy, wanting the white vinyl the same colour as his van!

You probably would have been ok with a cast vinyl actually.

[Nigel Fraser]

Paul,

I don’t know which bit was printed – guessing it was just the pic of the guy ? If so I’m not sure if that really qualifies as a wrap as such – sorry, I’m not putting your job down in any way, I’m not sure where you would draw the line at describing a vehicle wrap actually 🙂

Anyway, if you have a white van and want to avoid the white not matching the paint – print on clear instead, then you can hardly see the edges and the contour cutting is easier if you do it by hand too.

Nice job anyway 😉

Nigel

[Paul P]

maybe i should have said 1st attempt at using a wrap vinyl?

The caricature of the guy is printed, along with the yellow steam cleaning hose that runs to the rear of the van. What doesn’t show too well on the photo is a line of bubbles and soap suds that run along the bottom of the image.
I chose to use vws because of its ability to be pulled back and repositioned/ heated back into shape, as i’d not attempted to cover this large an area before & was concerned about alignment errors, also the customer was concerned about vinyl shrinking back out of the recesses of the van.

Its a long way from a full wrap I admit, but it was a good learning experience at working with this material.

[Martin Pearson]

Paul, I dont want to put you off but keep a close eye on the van, KPMF were having a problem a while back with the vinyl not staying in the reccesses.
Dont know if it was down to the application or the vinyl/adhesive itself.
If it were down to incorrect installation it would be something like the van not cleaned properly, not enough heat to fully loose all trace of memory or even applying wet. You really need to put a lot of heat in to this vinyl to get it to stay in the reccesses and I know Robert goes over the whole thing three times. If applied wet wate in the reccesses can stop the adhesive from getting a grip but looking at the photo I would imagine this was all done dry anyway.

[Nigel Fraser]

Paul, Yep the vws film is very handleable stuff, so it does make applying a lot easier. As Martin said (and I think Rob will vouch for this too) the vws film is ideal for getting over compound curves etc but it does tend to not stay put very well when heated into recesses on vehicles. I found to my cost after having to replace all the heated parts on a half wrap I did 6 months ago 🙁
Mind you it does depend on lots of other factors too, if you only had smallish recesses and the van was nice & clean then you might well not have any problems if you reheated it once it was in place.
Best of luck anyway, sorry to be picky about your “wrap” 😉

Nigel